Interpreting Isaiah - The Empathy of Jesus

Some of my best scriptural insights come from Institute. Recently, we've been reading in Isaiah, which has been going much better than I expected. By reading through the verses slowly, discussing them, and checking out different translations for other perspectives, we've been finding good, spiritual messages in almost everything we've read, including a scripture that, until recently, I only half understood. I'll share it here, along with the two verses that came before it, for context.

But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. 

Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. 

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. 

Isaiah 49: 14-16

I say I half-understood verse 16 because the first half of the verse is spelled out pretty clearly. In a very painful way, Christ has engraved us onto the palms of his hands, but what's all this about our walls being before him?

In our in-class discussion, the first idea that was suggested was that our "walls" are the barriers that we build up foolishly that separate us from the Lord, but considering the meaning of the rest of the message, that didn't seem to make much sense. Perhaps, if the word "yet," had been thrown in between the semicolon and "thy walls," then that interpretation would carry more weight, and certainly, the message of that interpretation is worth considering. Jesus Christ went through tremendous pain to help us; what right do we have to shut Him out?

But the interpretation that makes more sense to me and that I, therefore, like better came after considering possible synonyms for the word "wall." A wall could be a barrier, a dividing line, a thing that separates two people or places, or it could be an obstacle. Using the word "obstacles" in place of the word "walls," Isaiah 49:16 reads, "Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy obstacles are continually before me." It sounds like He's saying that our challenges are His challenges; that He knows what we're going through because He's facing it too, and that stands out as true and significantly for two reasons.

First, Jesus Christ already has faced all our challenges, and overcome them. Bringing up this empathy in consideration of his scars, symbols of the crucifixion, calls to mind an image of the Atonement in the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus Christ felt all our pain and suffering, and all the weight of our struggles and sins, and overcame it all. He carried our enormous weight about 2000 years ago, and He's reminded of that every time He looks at His hands. He's not going to forget us in our afflictions now.

The second reason I find this interpretation as been both true and touching is that, if we are trying to keep the commandments, the Lord will stand by us and help us face our trials and challenges. In a very real sense, as we strive to be righteous, we are facing that struggle together, side-by-side with Jesus Christ, our Savior, who is helping us and strengthening us every step of the way.

As we face the challenges of life, it's easy to feel discouraged and alone. It's easy to think that nobody knows what we're going through; that nobody, not even Jesus, knows the weight of our burdens. But He does know the weight of our burdens. He knows their weight because He has carried them Himself, and because He's helping us carry them now. He has engraved us on the palms of His hands. Our obstacles are His obstacles. He will not forget us, nor forsake us, as long as we do not forsake Him.